


Out for Breakfast

by astudyinfondness (Emmcat)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Phandom Fic Fests, based on an anecdote from the show, interactive introverts, no segment spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-18 01:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14842880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmcat/pseuds/astudyinfondness
Summary: Dan and Phil are forced to go outside for breakfast after sleeping in and it’s not so bad. (Based on a conversation from the Nottingham Interactive Introverts show May 02 2018.)





	Out for Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Megia for being an amazing beta! Please check out her fics (she's @megia on ao3)
> 
> Also, thank you Mandy for the transcription (https://indepthbants.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1321&p=88917#p88917) that inspired this fic.

It’s a privilege to wake up with raven black hair in his mouth, Dan thinks.

Because it means that he either has a dog (he did in his recent dream), or that there’s a human body attached to that hair.

His bare chest is pressed against someone’s back, and his knees are fitted to theirs.

His mind is calm today in contrast to the adrenaline-fuelled awareness that carried him through last night’s show, but it is without a doubt Phil’s hair in his mouth.

A deep sense of satisfaction weighs him down along with the duvet and spreads from his chest all the way to where his fingertips are resting on Phil’s stomach. It’s this feeling and the lightness in his heart that makes him want to freeze this moment forever.

They’re busy and on their feet more often than they’re used to, if the small ache in the arches in his feet and his legs are anything to go by. This departure from their day-to-day lives—touring and experiencing tangible evidence of the empire they’ve built—is rewarding in ways that celebrating with a lazy night in their flat never will be.

Yet, there’s something about being alone during this interlude, this time off the chaotic excitement of live shows, that feels extra special and well earned. This stolen time in a hotel room they have to themselves, a change in pace, is something he’s grateful for.

Mostly though, as much as he wants to be alone, he’s more grateful that his definition of alone means alone with Phil.

It’s as if he’s suspended in time, shielded from the outside world with blankets and the rhythm of Phil’s breaths, the warmth surrounding him. He’s hazy with the feeling of having slept for too long, but so content.

He presses his hands into soft skin and lazily trails his fingers along Phil’s sternum.

It’s something he looks forward to every night: he likes the constancy of ending and starting the day together because he knows it’s within reach yet it’s as close to a dream as he can get before sleep takes over. It’s a routine and a comfort on far away nights.

Although they’re laying in an unfamiliar but surprisingly comfortable mattress and duvet, this feels just as much as a home as any other night spent together.

So, when Dan hears deep breathing morphing into light snuffles and his left shoulder meets the air, an absence of Phil, he reflexively rolls and hugs Phil to his chest.

They have lots of time before they need to be at the concert hall. They had promised to return to the venue after lunch, so Dan doesn’t have to worry about getting up any time soon.

As he feels Phil shift and start to inch his way toward the headboard, Dan squeezes tighter even if it takes too much energy in his half-conscious state. Phil doesn’t move much because Phil is sluggish and grumpy every morning, but Dan finds himself latching onto Phil’s thigh and pressing his cheek against the coarse hairs as he hears Phil clink open his glasses.

It’s not the most comfortable arrangement but Phil’s warm and he wants Phil back in his arms.

Dan shifts and rubs his cheek against the smooth cotton of Phil’s boxers.

He’s too sleepy to react to the fact that his face is practically pressed against Phil’s ass.

“Let go, you limpet. It’s time to get up.”

Dan squints. At first, he doesn’t notice that the mattress and duvet are blindingly white and not theirs.

Dan looks up to glare at the source of such unappealing statement and it only makes him want to stay in bed even longer. Phil’s sitting against the headboard and he’s filming him. He does this sometimes, when both of them are well aware that filming is reserved for their eyes only.

Dan wonders what Phil deems worthy about him for filming as he turns on his stomach to peek blearily up at Phil with bags under his eyes.

If Dan was awake enough, he would be the one filming Phil. This morning, Phil has a quiff and glasses and sheet creases and stubble, his skin is glowing against the white hotel sheets, and his eyes are smiling something reserved for Dan alone.

Dan can’t stop rush of affection that prompts him to kiss Phil’s thigh.

The phones shakes as Phil chuckles and grunts, “you weirdo.”

Dan smiles.

“I don’t wanna get up,” Dan says, his voice muffled by Phil’s thigh.

“What?”

Dan knows that Phil knows what he mumbles because he can hear the smirk in his voice.

Dan groans, “Unnnngh,” because he knows Phil will laugh.

He’s not disappointed, but he’s surprised to feel the whole mattress vibrating with the force of Phil’s silent giggles.

Dan knows instantly that he’s not the only one who’s caught in a state of bliss.

He literally sighs and his eyes fall shut again.

That is, until Phil starts to shake him and tries to roll him out of bed with his leg.

“Stop,” Dan complains without conviction as his head lolls uselessly and his arms stay wrapped tightly around Phil’s leg.

“You’re lucky I didn’t poke you,” Phil says, as he shoves a finger in his dimple. “I’m still tempted.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Before they fell asleep sprawled on top of each other, exhausted down to their bones as the adrenaline from the last show wore off, they came to a sleep-drunk consensus that there would be no alarms before ten o’clock in the morning. They had earned a sleep-in (as much as they could with tour life anyway) and they would head down for breakfast in the—

“Shit.” Dan jolts awake.

“What?”

Phil is trying to appear concerned while trying not to laugh at him. He looks a little constipated, but he’s still cute and Dan is irritated to find that he’s not the least bit offended at Phil.

Dan glares (or tries to).

He’s pretty sure they’re late for hotel breakfast considering they slept like rocks last night and didn’t set an alarm, but he’s still horizontal and can’t be bothered to get up and check the time. He’s also trying to hold a non-existent grudge against Phil, so he can’t ask for the time.

“Two minutes to ten.” Damn Phil and his psychic capabilities. “The hotel isn’t serving breakfast anymore.”

“I don’t want to get up,” Dan whines for the second time. “Think of all that time we could have spent in bed if we’d woken up an hour earlier.”  

Wait.

“You knew we’d have to go outside and you never told me?” Dan squeals in an only mildly exaggerated tone.

“I was waiting for you to realise,” Phil says smugly.

Phil is just as reluctant to go out of the safety of their hotel room as Dan is, so Dan is well aware that what he’s saying is code for “I wanted us to rest peacefully and I didn’t want you to worry.”

Dan is only mildly irked that he’s been smiling up at Phil this entire time.

“We can go to that pancake restaurant around the corner.”

Dan doesn’t reply. He remembers the glee in Phil’s voice when he pointed out the place when they first drove past it. He had probably planned this whole thing.

Phil jostles his leg back and forth. “Pancakes, Dan, pancakes!”

Rude. Dan’s face is still stuck to his boxers.

But Dan is curious. Phil hasn’t had his morning coffee yet. Phil literally ate a tower of pancakes yesterday. Dan fails to fully understand why Phil’s reluctance to go outside is eclipsed by the prospect of consuming his favourite breakfast item for the second day in a row when Phil was half asleep or close to being sick when they’d gone to IHOP in America.

Dan’s raises his eyebrows at Phil but is willing to accept that Phil just oddly overexcited to be having good pancakes in their home country again.

Or, the simple explanation is that Phil is happy. And if Phil is happy, Dan is happy.

It’s not late (by their standards), but it makes sense that all the tables are filled at this time, Dan thinks with slight unease. He picks up snippets of conversation from the people around him despite the worn carpet floor and the various walls separating the booths.

In the time it takes to be seated, those conversations could be tied to people whispering about them and sneaking glances. Dan hardly thinks as he shoots a cursory glance across every surface as their waitress leads them to a table for two against a corner.

He doesn’t pick up on any signs of recognition, but that does little to staunch the mask of wariness they slip into automatically, an old defense system that keeps them walking more stiffly and a little farther apart than normal.

But Dan is reminded of the feelings that seemed to settle in his bones not a half hour ago even though he was half asleep. As he trails after Phil who’s less than a foot in front of him, thinking about those precious few minutes is enough to make the happiness surge through his blood and offset the shock of walking into a unfamiliar, crowded restaurant after being alone for the past twelve hours.

Phil is a grounding sight, somewhat of a homing beacon, and he’s trying not to pretend otherwise now, as much as he may have done in the past. That happiness had been nestled in his heart in some form since hours of skype calls, but it’s been a long process of communication and relearning how to express it in public, relearning how not to fight the ghost of the reckless lovers he saw in themselves eight years ago.

“You’re gonna fucking die Phil.” Dan is genuinely concerned for Phil.

“Worth it,” Phil says with a mouthful of pancake he’d plucked from Dan’s plate after having finished his own five-tier coliseum of pancakes.

Dan pulls his plate towards him. “Get your sticky fingers off my food, you peasant.”

That doesn’t stop Phil from retaliating by snatching a blueberry off his plate.

Dan glares.

“Fine, fine, I’m going to wash my hands, your highness.”

Dan can’t concentrate on the banter properly, not when Phil has chocolate on his mouth.

“Phil,” Dan says with a laugh as Phil’s scooting from his seat to get up.

Phil pauses, in the middle of shimmying out of the booth, hands hovering comically over the table, and cranes his neck to look back at Dan. “Mm?”

Dan taps his own lip.

Phil swipes at his mouth with a half used napkin and only succeeds in smearing the chocolate like lipstick.

Dan laughs so hard in a busy sea of voices that he attracts some stares—more attention than Phil would have gotten by lumbering to the washroom wearing chocolate foundation and blueberry juice gloves. It’s a raucous laugh that stands out even among the loud buzz of the restaurant, but he can’t find it in himself to care. It’s one of the rare occasions he feels immune to an audience. He’s caught in a spell of his own that bring out elation and fulfillment of a good breakfast rather than one cast by the curious, pressing eyes surrounding him that sets off flares of panic.

He’s less afraid of growing up with his best friend, even if that means being more childish in public.

Phil blushes and frowns at his napkin as though it had personally wronged him.

“Other side!”

It’s always been more than just the food that makes the giddiness bubble from within.

Time seems to fade into the background when they’re together and a room full of people becomes less intimidating when he has Phil to fill the space, like Phil is an illusion that Dan perceives to take up the entire high-ceilinged restaurant when in fact he’d prefer to retreat to quiet corners.

It’s raining too hard to ignore when they leave the pancake place. In the haze of rain, they become an imperfect pair of chess pieces, with Dan in transparent white and Phil in sleek black.

That’s all they are in the grand scheme of things. The feeling of stepping out of an enclosure (from the crowded diner through the too low doorway to the outside) makes him feel insignificant. They’re aware that they mean something to people around the world, but out in the open on a long stretch of pavement, the endless expanse of grey clouds are clustered across no more than one city at a time, yet they’re all Dan can see through the rain.

It’s liberating.

The water trickling across the crown of his head makes him alert and a bit squirmy, but it doesn’t stop him from following the achingly real person in front of him in an imitation of what he’d done going into the restaurant. It’s yet another confirmation of how he seeks comfort and significance in a place that feels too large for him.

Phil slows and waits for him to catch up.

“We don’t have all day. My fringe is droopy.”

Dan scoffs and shoves his hands in his pockets.

“Drooooopy.” Phil shakes his hair like a dog.

Phil makes himself laugh when all he does is succeed in getting his carefully gelled hair into his face.

Dan all but power walks towards Phil until he registers that he was considering surprising Phil by spinning his boyfriend around in circles because he was cute while he made himself laugh.

Nevertheless, he’s powerless to step closer until he’s nearly shoulder to shoulder with Phil.

Dan leans in and flicks a strand of floppy fringe out of Phil’s eyes. He’ll allow himself that slip of self-control, at least.

Phil gazes at him.

Dan doesn’t realise how close together they’ve gotten until he notices the rain collecting on Phil’s beaky nose and his eyelashes. Dan wants to kiss the water drops off his eyelids.

Phil smirks at him.

“Shut up,” Dan retorts smartly, forcing himself to look straight forward as he resumes walking.

Phil matches his pace right away.

“I never said anything.”

He’s usually more conservative than this in public. So is Phil.

But there’s something about this era, of doing what they want on their own terms, that makes them give into their desires more, to stop denying what they want.

They’re older now. They talk. They know their limits.

Their stomachs are full and Dan normally feels sleepy, but he’s more invigorated than he’s felt for a while even during this supposed rest period. Though the rest of the tour looms ahead of them with little time for proper rest, they’re happy to live in the moment for the time being. Besides, if everything goes to plan, he’ll be happy he’s touring the world with an unmistakable constant (a person) in his life.

They may have sacrificed their alone time, but any time together is time well spent. It doesn’t hurt to say it aloud.

“Thanks for dragging me outside,” Dan says as he leans his weight into Phil.

Phil nudges him back.

Dan knows that Phil understands he’s grateful for breakfast and so much more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment here or through my tumblr :)  
> https://astudyinfondness.tumblr.com/post/174686319498/out-for-breakfast


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